Portobello Central SCIO was established to bring Portobello Town Hall back to life
under community management and to provide Portobello with a lively, accessible,
flexible and welcoming venue fit for the 21st century.
The Story so far
We opened our doors on 1st June 2023 and since that standing start we have gone
from strength to strength.
We have employed 4 staff: a venue manager for 30 hours a week, an admin worker for 10 hours a week and 2 event staff, each for 10 hours a week.
We are part way through a £150,000 refurbishment and we have bookings well into 2025 and beyond.
Events have included musical theatre and pantomime, makers’ markets, boxing and wrestling, ceilidhs, ballet shows, book readings, birthday parties and weddings and more.
As a board we are now at the stage of moving from being the group that saved the
building to becoming the group that runs a community business in business-like yet
inclusive manner. We're now looking to expand our range of skills and expertise.
The Board
The role of the Board is:
To set and maintain the vision, mission and values of the organisation,
To set the strategic direction of the organisation, make plans for implementation and monitor progress,
To ensure good governance including ensuring that the organisation has the structure, capacity and resources for its work,
To make certain that the financial affairs of the organisation are conducted properly and are accurately reported,
To support the Staff in the operational aspects of the running of the Town Hall.
What we are looking for
We are currently looking for some specific skills, although we welcome people with
other skills and enthusiasm who would like to be part of our next stages of
development.
The areas we have identified are
Fundraising
Finance
Venue management
Legal
HR
Building/ property management
Ideally this would be as trustees, but we know that’s not a role for everyone. If being
a Trustee isn't your bag but you'd like to help in those areas above we'd love to have a conversation with you to look at how you could support and advise us on a
voluntary basis.
Alongside the specific skills, we are looking for more people to join our Board. You
don't have to have had previous experience of being a trustee, although an
understanding of the board role and governance would be a helpful backdrop. We
have an induction process to support everyone.
The formal process for becoming a trustee is by election at the AGM which will be at
the beginning of October, but our constitution allows up to co-opt people who
are not members if they have specialist skills or expertise, at any time.
Commitment
Our SCIO meetings are usually in person and we meet monthly, from 7.00- 9.00pm.
We have a number of subgroups who meet in between times to progress particular
aspects of the work.
Find out more
For more information please get in touch with Wendy at chair@portobellotownhall.org
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